Hi and welcome Alpaca,
Three and a half weeks is not a long time since your major surgery. Patience is also something you need and which I had very little of initially. One frustration I had was the professional people not giving me any idea when things would start to improve. When I asked I got the �how long is a piece of string� answer.
With time the thigh healed well as did the wrist although I still have a large crater that looks like a shark bite. I sometimes still get a little embarrassed when I hold my left hand out for change at the shops an realise the checkout person has seen it. Sometimes I remember to hold out my right hand but more often than not I don�t care so much any more. Your tongue will also get better with time and the hospital should have arranged speech therapy for you. If not ask when you have your next visit. I made a bit of a game out of inventing recipes for food I could eat.
Also had a large ovarian cyst (and other bits) removed in June which luckily was not cancerous. I counted a heap of staples from belly button down and all that has healed well now even though it does not look too pretty.
As you can see by my signature I have had the same operation as you but it is now 3 years ago.
Please post if you have any questions at all and I will be only too happy to answer.

Gabriele